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"If we're going to be consistent and advocate freedom of speech we have to advocate freedom of encrypted speech too. The genie is out of the bottle, cryptologically."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Vision Strip | ||
| A circular vision strip for robots. |
A strangely modern presentiment of machine vision.
| Tiny and black, a mass of hanging arms and legs, the thing went gliding down the slope of a hill. Steffens saw it clearly for a full second, saw the dull ball of its head tilt upward as the ship came over, and then the hill was past.
 (Robots from 'Orphans of the Void' by Michael Shaara) A band of clear, plastic like stuff ran round the head—it would be the eye, a band of eye that saw all ways. On the top of the head was a single round spot of the plastic, and the rest was black metal, joined, he realized, with fantastic perfection. The angle of sight was now almost perpendicular. He could see very little of the branching arms of the trunk, but what had been on the screen was enough. They were the most perfect robots he had ever seen. |
| Technovelgy from Orphans of the Void,
by Orville Shaara. Published by Galaxy in 1952 Additional resources -
|
Compare to this very early reference to Computer Vision (Artificial Eye) from The Metal Giants (1925) by Edmond Hamilton.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Orphans of the Void
More Ideas
and Technology by Orville Shaara
Tech news articles related to Orphans of the Void
Tech news articles related to works by Orville Shaara
Vision Strip-related
news articles:
- Prosthetic Vision Device ala Star Trek
| Robots Repair And Modify Themselves |
| Robot Janitors Get To Work |
| Robots Learn To Install Charged Batteries Into Themselves |
| Robot Rabbits Entice Pythons |
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'The peculiar quality of this light, which gave it its great preeminence over all other penetrating rays...'
'The overworked leg motor would have to cool down before he could work on it...'
‘Where to, sport?’ the starter at cab relay asked.
This is nothing new for science fiction fans!
'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
